


Lying Awake at Midnight

by Bai_Marionette



Series: Brass Steps [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Backstory, Domestic Violence mention, Extent of Alfred's condition, M/M, Suicide mention, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2593532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bai_Marionette/pseuds/Bai_Marionette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mattie works late, Alfred is by himself. When he's by himself, there's no one around to remind him that he's still Alfred F. Jones. That he can still be happy after the crash. There's no one around to give a shit and that's what hurts the most.</p><p>Then he goes to Room 125, sees Mr. Bragniski smile at him and hand him his trumpet, where he lies to himself and pretends that what they have is enough. It's not, it never was and never will be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lying Awake at Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Lola already saw this coming, I apologize for this being so late, but not for the angst of this chapter. I warned it was a sad series.

Alfred sat in the bath, smoking a cigarette that he'd stolen from Mattie's room. The ash fell into the water but he didn't care. He stared ahead, at the yellowed bathroom tiled wall. It was ugly. He wished that his older sibling would buy better soap.

He heard muffled screaming from the apartment next to him and took another inhale of the nicotine before blowing it out.

He cupped water from his lap and poured it over his head, closing his eyes and trying to block out the screams before a slap was heard. He knew domestic violence by a name now, next door - it went by the name of the Nicksons. Alfred wished the wife - Veronica, was that right? - would make this night out alright. He had once tried to step in, to Mattie's horror, and had landed in a tangled heap of his own limbs and a pair of bruised ribs. He remembered the world spinning and Mattie calling the police, trying to drag him away as Terry shouted something and Veronica pushed him back into their apartment.

He was just a kid, he remembered her saying. A cripple, he couldn't do anything.

He growled, wondering why he had felt bad for her in the first place.

He wasn't...a - that. He wasn't useless.

His eyes burned, but he didn't let anything out. Instead, taking a deep inhale and almost choking himself on it as the first sob pushed itself out of his chest and blew the smoke from his lungs.

He heard a thump.

Alfred scoffed at the irony as the first tear hit the water's surface.

:::

Car horns blared from down the street, the teen trying to sleep barely able to drown them out of his ears with thin pillows and even thinner walls. He angrily sighed, picking his head up from the makeshift excuse of sleeping material and looked out the dirty window. Traffic on the street blow was backed up, typical New York traffic. He glanced at his alarm clock, squinting to see it was some time past midnight. He sighed again.

Midnight.

And Mattie still wasn't home.

"...They still aren't home yet," Alfred had to mentally correct himself. He scowled, hating how he always found himself up when Mattie wasn't there, and asleep when he was. He still wasn't used to the other's...change, so to speak, if he could call it that. He still had one old photo of Mattie before they had graduated high school and before they'd been kicked out of the house for coming out as something that Alfred had been too young to understand or remember. They'd looked so different, wearing a flowered skirt and a blouse that looked a few sizes too small at their chest.

Even now, he always had to correct himself when he was around the other - or just talking to them, in general. Five months, they'd be living together since Alfred had been released from the hospital. Or rather five months since the hospital had kicked out Alfred when his parents' old insurance company refused to foot the bill anymore and Mattie was found to be too broke to even cover the cost of Alfred walking in. Not that he could walk on his own anymore anyways.

Alfred scowled at the shapes in his sheets and then tore his gaze away to try and go back to sleep.

His legs. He had been such a star athlete, overconfident on the field, and praised for his form. He had never thought he'd be without them, he had taken them for granted. And in that dark, dingy apartment that Mattie could barely afford, he was being reminded of everything he had lost.

He lost his legs - now twisted, scarred and useless. He had needed more than four surgeries after the crash to get them where they were now, and even then, they were still nowhere near where they had once been. They probably would never be. His doctor had told him back at the hospital that since the crash, even with the medicine they were trying to use, his body was using his injured legs as a feeding grounds. His own body was literally eating the strength and vitals of his legs, leaving only vulnerable and sensitive nerves under paled and ugly skin that had wrinkled and scarred over.

He lost most of what he called his independence - sometimes, he needed help getting out of bed, because he had slept wrong the night before and the weight of his lower half would be stronger than his upper body strength could hold. He needed crutches to get around, with the aid of leg braces to make sure his legs remained straight and didn't fall out under him. His muscles were nearly gone, barely holding onto the bones - not that those were any better.

He lost his parents - One bastard of a father that he never given a rat's ass about, and a mother he gave almost two shits for. His dad forgot he existed, forgot his marriage existed really, only did his work and threatened his mistress (also his secretary) with passive aggressive expensive gifts to keep quiet about their affair. His mother worked more often Alfred saw her at home, but he remembered her being nice. When she wasn't crying herself to sleep with a bottle in her empty bed, calling Alfred's uncle Charlie and beg him to help her salvage her marriage. There was also the suicide scare where she had a nervous breakdown at home after she had threatened to kill her husband if he cheated on her again. He had called her a liar and said she wouldn't do it.

She'd locked herself up in the bathroom; taking only a bottle of her depression pills, a whiskey bottle and a knife with a shotgun as her only company. It took Alfred almost twenty minutes to break the door down and make her see her wrongs. He had seen the whole argument and she had cried, promising that it wasn't his fault and that she'd get his father to stay with them. But Alfred knew it wasn't his fault, it was his dad's fault. He didn't care about him either, just as long as his mother made it out alive, he had thought he'd be cool with the bastard going off a cliff in his stupid Mercedes-Benz.

And then...

Alfred got his wish. Sorta.

His dad went off the cliff, but he took his family with them.

It had a Christmas party, Alfred's father was pretty much drunk and his mother - bless her sweet alcoholic heart - was on her way to being 'tipsy' as she slurred that it was time to go home. It was a three hour drive home on the highway, lots of icy turns and sharp curves. He didn't know why he didn't speak up, maybe he had brought the accident on himself. But he'd gotten into that car, put in his earbuds and just blared his music and tried to sleep, he remembered hearing his mother's drunken attempt at promising her husband sex.

There's a gap in his memory and then he remembered his father's loud cursing, his mother's screaming and the sound of metal giving way. He remembered bolting upright, eyes wide in the darkness, swearing loudly and calling for his mother. He remembered being pushed to the back of the seats, terror gripping him, on the verge of sobbing in fear, phone held so tight in his hands that he thought he'd cracked it - and then nothing.

It was like Alfred had blinked - and then he's lying in the snow. He can't feel anything. His eyes won't stay open, breathing is difficult and he felt like he was dying. He remembered trying to move his legs and being numb. Whether numbly shocked at the amount of blood around him and the smell of fire nearby or shocked that he couldn't feel his legs or just numb in general, he still doesn't know.

Then, he blinked and he woke up to paramedics trying to revive him in the ambulance.

He remembered seeing one red sheet still in the snow, vaguely remembered that white sheets are placed on the dead.

He doesn't recall anything after that, just later waking up in the hospital and seeing Mattie with their long hair cut short, almost horribly skinny and with much flatter chest than he ever remembered them with. He remembered a doctor telling him that he'd never walk again.

Then Mattie's hands were on him as he threw a fit and kept trying to fight off nurses with their needles and charts, shouting and crying and vainly trying to move anything below his waist. The only thing he felt was numb.

Whether numb from the new drugs being administered to him or just numb because reality was sinking in as the doctor was heard saying, "I'm sorry..." as they walked out of the room.

Alfred cried.

The hospital broke the news about his parents later.

He didn't know why he cried then.

:::

Alfred swallowed.

He was still staring down at the roads, blinking slowly. Dawn was breaking, he had only gotten a few hours of sleep. He licked his lips, it didn't help much and he yawned. He heard the door open downstairs and Mattie come in. Footsteps up the stairs and then he felt the air in his room change. Mattie tried to clear their throat, deepen their voice, "You still up?"

Alfred didn't bother answering.

Mattie waited a while, sighed, and then left.

Alfred never bothered to answer that question anymore, they both already knew he was.

"You need to get up anyways, it's almost time for the bus to come," Mattie called from down the hall.

Alfred waited out another ten minutes.

Mattie calls him again.

Only then, does he sigh and attempt to get ready for the day.

:::

None of his classes mattered anymore; he was excelling - he had nothing better to do than study at Mattie's place, unless he wanted to sit on the porch and watch fights and the daily violence of the dirty side of his city.

"Alfred," a familiar voice called out to him. He focused on that voice in the flurry of students passing by him, putting more energy into getting himself to the other side of the hall, not even caring to say 'excuse me' because he knew that the kids at his high school didn't even glance at him anymore. He was invisible now.

Except to him.

That stupid smile still made his chest both swell and constrict at the same time.

"Are you alright? You don't look like you slept very well," there are gentle hands on his shoulders to lead him inside the classroom.

He put on his best smile in response, wheezing a bit for breath after the long trek across the school grounds to the band room, then replied, "Yea - I mean no, it was just noisy last night." He remembered Veronica, next door, then pushed her out of his mind. "Lots of traffic under my window."

"Ah," Ivan replies, nodding, helping Alfred to his designated seat and then going off to fetch the teen's instrument from the band closet. Alfred saw the older male practically leap into the closet and felt a smile lift his cheeks until he squashed it. No. Stop feeling, he told himself. He squared his shoulders, getting more comfortable in the chair for the practice ahead of him. Technically, school had ended and Alfred could have gone home, the older male could be grading papers or whatever music teachers did after hours.

You can't feel that way, Alfred told himself. He licked himself, looking down then up, right as the older came back. His face was lit up. He was grinning, and he held something behind his back. He came up to Alfred with proud steps, pride radiating from him, "I heard you made the scholarship. So..."

He offered out the wrapped package, decorated in Captain America wrapping paper and an American flag bow that was bigger than Alfred's fist. The teen gaped, stared down at the present, then at the music teacher that was not his to hold.

He took the gift in shaky hands, internally wanting to scream as his heart clenched on itself. He didn't deserve this, he didn't need this, he was trying so hard not to cry-

He almost thought his heart stopped.

It was a trumpet.

But it was custom made out to adorn the American flag, a bald eagle at the mouth, with golden keys and mouthpiece.

He looked back up at his teacher, face and eyes burning at the same time.

Ivan smiled down at him, kneeling down to his level, "I'm so proud of you, Alfred. You've worked so hard. You deserve more than I can ever give you."

Alfred felt the first set of tears fall, shoulder shaking as his hands shook over his gift. He wanted to throw it to the ground and watch it dent and break - while also cherish it and hold it close it forever. He would graduate soon. No, no, this isn't how he wanted it to be. He couldn't take this.

Ivan was shushing him, saying it was okay to be scared and cry, wiping his tears with a practiced thumb. He was being nice, acting the role of a fatherly figure or positive role model. Alfred didn't want a role model. He wanted him to love him back, he wanted to tell him, to spill everything.

Feeling Ivan so close to him, having him so close to him, doing everything he thought he could to make Alfred happy - and yet, he was doing everything wrong. Alfred wanted him closer, he wanted him to tell him other things and just-

"I'm so proud of you, Alfred," Ivan said, and then by some twisted grace of God, he felt a light kiss at the top of his hair.

God damn it, he didn't want his pride then.

**Author's Note:**

> Alfred's trumpet:
> 
> http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/UtleyPages/Trumpets/AndyTaylor/7147/4-7147witheagleLG.jpg  
> http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/UtleyPages/Trumpets/AndyTaylor/7147/3-7147frontLG.jpg


End file.
